At a recent talk at the Asian College of Journalism, Yogendra Yadav analysed the “moral, political, and personal” defeat of Modi and the BJP, despite their victory in the 2024 general elections. He discussed the pre-election climate, pointed out the likely and unlikely reasons for the BJP’s smaller win, and described the post-election status quo. Yadav proposed building a new democratic India through class politics, grassroots resistance, and cultural ideological contestation, aiming for a better Indian republic.

The following is the full text of the talk, edited lightly for syntax and clarity.

Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to come to this extraordinary institution which has kept the flame of true journalism alive in this country. I’ve met many of your alumni, some very, very bright minds, very good journalists, and therefore you didn’t have to persuade me. You don’t get this invitation every day, and I jumped at it. Thank you for this opportunity, and thanks for enabling me to speak about something which, to my mind, goes much beyond the elections that we are talking about, you know, and that’s what I really appreciate this opportunity for.

In fact, I think I’ll probably end up writing a small book because what we have witnessed recently is not just an election and just one election outcome. This country has seen 18 [elections], but something very unusual has taken place, and we need to learn from that. Thanks for this first opportunity for me to talk about that big picture. Delighted and honoured to see so many friends, some of the best minds in this country amongst us, and it’s always a pleasure to come to Chennai for that reason. Thank you.

The question is simple, the answer is not. Are we back to democratic politics? I think we need to ask at least six questions in order to answer this, and I’ll try and ask those questions one by one and answer them one by one.

The first question is where were we? Back to democratic politics assumes that we were in something other than democratic politics. Indeed, that was the case. So, where were we? Second, what was this election all about? I would argue that this was not an election. Third, which is to say, what exactly was at stake here? Fourth, what was the outcome? All of us know the numbers, but what’s the overall outcome all about? Fourth, what led to this outcome? Why? Fifth, where are we now? Sixth, what’s the way forward?

Sorry, it’s a very classroom kind of a thing, but that’s the way I think. As I said, some of these questions are not really just questions about an election; these are questions about the future of this country, the very future of our Republic, and the very possibility of maintaining our Republic.

Where were we?

My one-line description for that is India had very rapidly become, for the last seven or eight years or you could say ten years, someone could say five years, India had become what should be described as competitive authoritarianism. Now, the point to remember is that this simple binary between democracy and dictatorship does not capture even 10 to 20% of the countries in the world. In order to describe most countries in the world now, we have to think of hybrids. One of those standard hybrids is competitive authoritarianism, where the government holds elections, there is some element of competitiveness about those elections, but there’s very little democracy outside those elections. Elections themselves are structured in such a way as to give the ruling party a structural advantage.

Without getting into the details of it, there’s a lot of technical literature now on competitive authoritarianism throughout the world. India had become a textbook case of competitive authoritarianism. Instead of simply calling it a dictatorship or simply calling it a democracy which was flawed, I think we had moved much beyond being simply a flawed democracy. We’ve been a flawed democracy for 70 years, but in the last ten years, we had crossed to something else. It was competitive authoritarianism mixed with non-theological majoritarianism. That is to say, countries which do not declare themselves to be officially a theological country. My sense is that India was unlikely to declare itself into one, but for all practical purposes, it was a majoritarian country.

Please remember these words: competitive authoritarianism, non-theological majoritarianism. This is what we had become, and we were very rapidly sliding towards a full-blown 21st-century style authoritarianism, where competition was beginning to become a formality, and we were sliding towards a de facto Hindu Rashtra. Please remember, no dictator in the 21st century wants to be seen to be a dictator. There was a 20th-century model of dictatorship where someone would wear a uniform, come to the radio in those days (there weren’t televisions), and say you have martial law and censorship. Dictators have become smart, like everything else, like smartphones and everything. Dictators now know that it’s silly to do those things. So, every dictator holds elections in the world. Putin also holds it, for your record. We were quite like this 21st-century style dictatorship, where you don’t officially do things like censorship, but someone who opposes you, that television channel somehow closes down in three or four months or is bought over. You don’t officially put martial law, but somehow all the dissenters find their way to Siberia. So, this is what’s happening. This is Russia, this is Turkey, this is Hungary, and this is happening in so many parts of the world.

We were very rapidly sliding in that direction. We had reached the end of the First Republic of India. It’s a harsh thing to say, but the fact is that the Republic of India, which was inaugurated on 26th January 1950, actually has come to an end. It came to an end around 2019. We are not used to those things. In France, they are more used to it, so they have the First Republic, Second Republic, Third Republic. So, our First Republic is pretty much over. We were headed towards a new constitution without a new formal document called the Constitution. A constitution need not be written. You just have to bring in a new amendment to change it completely. It happened in 1975-76. Just one amendment could change everything in the Constitution. We were headed in that direction.

So, this is where we were before this election.

What was at stake in this election then?

What was this election all about? What was the significance of this election? In one word, I would say this was not an election; this was a plebiscite. The difference between an election and a plebiscite, as you all know, is that in an election you choose your representatives; in a plebiscite, there is one question that everyone answers. Brexit: yes or no? So, this was about seeking public endorsement for dismantling of the Republic. In the 21st century, you need the public to dismantle the Republic, and this election was about ensuring public stamp of approval on dismantling of our Republic. More specifically, “Modi ki guarantee” was a catchphrase to legitimate all that this regime had done in the last ten years and anything that it possibly could do in the next five or a number of years to come.

Mind you, this election was nowhere about this entity called NDA. Did anyone hear about it before the election results? NDA did not exist before the election results. This election was not about NDA. It was not even about the BJP. It was about the Supreme Leader seeking unconditional approval for his regime. “Modi ki guarantee.” BJP was in small fonts throughout the country. I’ve seen thousands of BJP hoardings. BJP would be written, BJP symbol was there, of course, but BJP party’s name was in tiny font towards the end, as if it was just one of the sponsors of the hoarding, no more.

Every plebiscite has its own conditions of what would constitute a majority. Some plebiscites have 51%, some plebiscites put it higher than that. Because this particular election was a plebiscite which was meant to get popular endorsement for virtually rewriting the real constitution of this country, formalities apart, the threshold was pretty high, although somewhat unspecified. “Chaar Sau Par,” or “400 plus”, was indeed a gimmick. Probably the BJP knew that they were not going to get it. That was definitely the upper end of the threshold. But my sense is that the regime felt comfortable in expecting a substantial improvement upon its tally of 2019. So, in a sense, the unstated threshold was that we would do even better than 2019, and if BJP had done one seat more than 303, that certainly would have meant “yes” in this plebiscite.

For the last ten years, I don’t know if you noticed these things. In any television discussion, ask BJP spokesperson any question on Earth, it could be about demonetisation, it could be about MSP to farmers, it could be about Umar Khalid. The answer would be, “People are with us.” You know, and this is what was most important. This election was about being able to say that people are with us, and 303 plus was that threshold which would have given that. My sense is that the ruling party very much expected this to be the case. This was not merely a plebiscite; it was a carefully controlled plebiscite. Given the high stakes, the regime left nothing to chance. To eliminate the possibility of any real contest. All legitimate, semi-legitimate, and completely illegitimate means were deployed to ensure that the plebiscite produces the desired result.

Ram Temple was to do in 2024 what Pulwama or Balakot achieved in 2019, perfectly timed two months before the election. You know, I mean, it’s sort of part of the electoral calendar, perfect orchestration around that. I don’t know if that frenzy reached Chennai very much. Fortunately, many bad things stop much before they reach Chennai, but in this case, I suspect it did reach Tamil Nadu as well. But perfect orchestration of a kind which is unprecedented, careful strategizing.

In the light of the results, many of us may not wish to believe in what I’m saying, but you see, I keep saying this, Mr. Ram, very often that all political commentators must listen to cricket commentary very seriously because I find cricket commentary is so nuanced and political commentary is so crude. No cricket commentator........

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